Black Dagger Brotherhood Fan-Fiction
by luccrezia
Summary: Inspired by the characters and stories created by J.R. Ward. What would it be like if the Brothers were confronted with a new, challenging opponent? Featuring original characters, rated M for language and violence.
1. Chapter 1

Hadrian, as he was called, was a human, sort of, but for the last five years, he'd made his living killing vampires, mostly at the behest of other stronger, vampires. The West Coast, where he lived, was home to a number of vampire expatriates, many of them criminals, who had fled the protective rule of their King, their _glymera_, and their Black Dagger Brotherhood to live in lawlessness. Here, the powerful did as they pleased and the powerless suffered. As far as the more ruthless of the vampires were concerned, Hadrian was just another weapon that they could use against their own kind to remove their rivals and weed out their weak. Being only sort of human and therefore stronger than most of his race, he was perfect for their purposes, especially since he didn't care whom he worked for or what he did as long as he got paid.

It was early dawn and the sky was going gray when Hadrian returned to his apartment, aching and drenched in vampire blood. His cell phone buzzed. He checked the number, checked it again, surprised, and finally picked it up. "Hello?"

"Hey, Nick." The voice on the other end of the line was one that Hadrian hadn't heard since he'd moved to California, but he recognized it right away. It belonged to his cousin, Jake, who still lived in New York where they had both been brought up.

"Don't call me that," Hadrian said sharply. 'Nick' wasn't his real name any more than 'Hadrian was, but it was an old nickname that he hadn't heard for a while, and it brought back a lot of old memories that he didn't care to remember. 'Old Nick' had been what his mother had called him, after the devil, because, according to her, he'd been the very devil of a child to raise. _Sorry, Mom_. But she'd probably also called him 'Nick' after herself; her name had been Nicolette, and she had been a hit man of renown. She hadn't killed vampires, of course, because she hadn't known about them, but she had killed drug lords for other drug lords and racketeers for other racketeers. The police had left her alone on the grounds that, in a way, she had been doing their job for them.

"What the hell do you want, Jake?" Jake was unassertive and weak-willed; he could be bullied into doing anything by anybody. There was only one reason that someone like him would call after five years of silence. He was in trouble.

And, sure enough— "Things aren't going well here in New York," Jake said after a pause.

"Of course they aren't," Hadrian said grimly. "Why else would you call me after five years except to bitch about your problems? Let me guess. You've let yourself get pressured into doing something that you didn't really want to do, because you can't stand up for yourself for _balls_, just like when we were kids. Now, you regret having done it. Something bad has happened, probably because of you, so you've come running to me, expecting me to fix it for you. Never mind that I'm happy where I am, doing what I am. I'm supposed to drop everything and come to your rescue. God _damn _it, Jake, I'm so sick of your _bullshit_."

Silence, only, on the other end of the line. Jake hadn't hung up, but he hadn't tried to interrupt Hadrian either. He had listened meekly to Hadrian's angry words. That alone told Hadrian that he was right about Jake's call. "Well, tell me everything," he said at last. "I'm not promising that I'll help you, though." Still, while he and Jake had parted on bad terms, they'd been as close as brothers as kids; he couldn't just ignore his cousin in his time of need. At the very least, he felt he ought to hear Jake out. He just hoped that this wasn't some kind of bullshit _lesser_ drama.

But of course it was. _Shit_. "X is dead," said Jake.

"Good," Hadrian said rudely. "I never liked the bastard." He hadn't, either. During their young adulthood in Caldwell, Hadrian and Jake had studied the martial arts at a dojo run by a _sensei _named Xavier. It hadn't been long before X had been putting the screws to them to join his 'secret society.' Hadrian had refused. He'd thought that X was a pervert. Jake, though, had ignored Hadrian's warnings that X was trouble; he had caved to his _sensei's _pressure and had been initiated. It was just one more case of Jake being strong-armed into doing something that he didn't really want to do, only to regret it at once.

Afterwards, Hadrian had to endure endless complaints from his cousin about his new life as a _lesser_. These complaints had only convinced him that he'd made the right choice by staying the hell out of the Society. Hadrian liked to kill, but he was _not _going to kill at anyone's order, like a pet velociraptor, and especially not at the Omega's; even just hearing about that thing had given him the fucking creeps. He was _not _going to work with a bunch of sociopaths, who had been inducted just because they were sociopaths, not because they'd had any real training, and who were all basically cannon fodder. He was _not _going to put up with the other _lessers' _petty politicking as they jockeyed for position, often to the detriment of the Society's goals. Anyway, didn't they realize that being the _Fore-lesser_ only meant that they'd be the Omega's bitch more often? Hadrian certainly was _not _going to be fed to the vampires, like meat into a grinder, just so that after he died he could be dragged back screaming to the Omega to work his will on for all eternity. On top of that, Hadrian didn't know whether the abilities that made him only 'sort of' human would survive his being turned—Jake's hadn't—and he was _not _going to take any chances with them.

But the really annoying thing hadn't been Jake's constant whining. Hadrian was used to that. It had been his cousin's equally constant attempts to get him to change his mind about joining the _lessers_. Where was the sense in bitching about the Lessening Society for hours, only to wrap it all up with a 'Hey, so are you ready to be inducted yet'? But, as Nicolette had used to say, Jake didn't have the sense that he'd been born with. He really seemed to think that he'd somehow be less miserable as a _lesser_ if Hadrian was there to be miserable with him.

One of the reasons that Hadrian had eventually ditched New York had been his cousin. The other much bigger reason had been X, which hadn't made Hadrian like him any better. You could just turn down a _Fore-lesser's _offer to join his secret society and then stay in town to enjoy yourself. X would have killed him to keep him from spreading the word about his cult and to prove to the _lessers _under his command that you couldn't refuse to give him what he wanted with impunity. Jake, as he so often did, had only made things harder for Hadrian by telling him so many of the Society's secrets. Unsurprisingly, that hadn't endeared him to X any.

So, Hadrian really wasn't sorry to hear that X was dead. Not when the douche had run him out of his own city.

But as it turned out, there was more to Jake's story. Much, much more. Not only had X been killed, but O had been killed, too. "Who the fuck is O?" O had been X's successor. _All _of X's successors had been killed. The Lessening Society was running through _Fore-lessers_ like a ten-dollar whore running through condoms. And with each turnover, the Omega became more and more impatient, more and more willing to quickly gank a _Fore-lesser_ whom he felt didn't show promise. His expectations of each new _Fore-lesser_ kept getting higher and higher. Every _lesser_, even the lowliest, like Jake, was under tremendous pressure. There was no interest in excuses, no room whatsoever for error. And now, to make matters worse, one of the Black Dagger Brotherhood's members—Jake wasn't sure which one—was going around, _eating _the _lessers_.

"Wait, wait, wait. Hold the fuck up. _What?_"

Yes, Hadrian had heard Jake right. This Brother sucked the living Omega right out of a _lesser_. In other words, when he got hold of a slayer and killed him, the slayer didn't go back to the Omega. He did a true death, for this Brother absorbed the Omega's very essence, the stuff that had been placed in the _lesser _to _make _him a _lesser._

If dying didn't sound as bad as becoming the Omega's plaything in the afterlife, that's because it _wasn't_. But having his being drained away from him bit by bit hadn't improved the Omega's temper. He was more savage than he had been _ever_ with those of his _lessers_ who were, unluckily enough, still alive.

"This," Hadrian said, once Jake had finished talking, "_All_ of this is why I told you not to become a _lesser_. I was there to when X gave you his little recruitment speech. I was there when he told us that if we became _lessers_ we could do whatever we wanted, kill whoever we wanted, without consequence. We would be faster and stronger than we could even imagine—infinitely more powerful than our enemies—unstoppable. Life would be a nonstop party, and it would go on forever because we would never die. And _I _told _you_ he was full of _shit_, but you didn't believe me. So, how's being a _lesser_ working out for you, Jake?" There was an angry, hard edge to Hadrian's voice that he couldn't help. "Are you doing whatever you want and killing whoever you want without consequence? Is life a nonstop party? Is the sun always shining down on you? Does the smog in Caldwell smell like _motherfucking _strawberries? Jesus Christ!" By now, he was yelling. "You've gotten yourself drafted into a god damn war that had nothing to do with either of us—nothing to do with any human! What do we humans care if the Brothers and the _lessers_ exterminate each other? Not only that, you've managed to get yourself drafted into the _losing _side. The _lessers _have never been anything but thugs. Just because a man's a thug, that doesn't make him a soldier. Your only edge over the Brothers has been your numbers and the fact that they're handicapped by having to protect their civilians. But now that one of them is eating you—eating the Omega—there's no way that you _can't _lose. You're going to die, Jake, and when you do, it will have been for absolutely _nothing_. And in the meantime, you can't eat or sleep or screw and you're serving the Lord of the motherfucking Cenobites."

"I know, Nick," Jake said. His voice sounded faraway and thin, indescribably weary. "You don't have to tell me. I know."

Hadrian took a deep breath. He shouldn't have gone off on Jake—poor, confused, irresolute, spineless Jake. Jake, who had always depended on him, trusted him, and followed him around, like a puppy. Jake couldn't help being the way he was. He'd never been able to understand why Hadrian got so frustrated with him. It just pissed Hadrian off that Jake, the last living member of his family, his best friend from boyhood, had sold his life for so little.

"So what exactly do you think that _I _ can do about all this?" Hadrian asked as soon as he trusted himself to speak calmly again.

Jake explained. The current _Fore-lesser_, L, was anxious to distinguish himself from his predecessors, preferably not by being the one who got recalled by the Omega the soonest. No—he wanted to be the one whose _lessers_ had brought down a Brother, something that hadn't been done since Darius, son of Tehrror, had been blown up; Tohrment, son of Hharm, going AWOL had just been lucky.

L didn't want to bring down a Brother with guerrilla tactics, either, as Darius had been brought down. Where was the glory in that? He wanted a Brother brought down in face-to-face, one-on-one combat; that would be so much more impressive. Ideally, he'd like to have him brought in alive, so that he could interrogate him, but he would settle for dead.

"He doesn't ask for much, does he?"

"Obviously, we _lessers _aren't exactly up to this task."

"Obviously."

The _lessers _had never brought down a Brother in face-to-face combat. _Never_. Not even when they had had him outnumbered. So the _Fore-lesser_ wanted to outsource the work. Of course, the problem was finding someone who could take on the job. Not even the most power-hungry vampires of the _glymera_ would consider siding with the _lessers _against their own race. Humans were out of the question; they were simply too weak. Besides, the _Fore-lesser _was reluctant to trust a normal human with any knowledge of his precious Society.

"So, I told him about you."

"I get it. Since I'm not human, I stand a chance against the Black Dagger Brotherhood, right? And since I already know about this little game of soldiers, he thinks that I can be trusted."

"Can't you?"

Hadrian ducked the question. "So, what, you want me to come to Caldwell and kill a few vampires for you? What would be the point? The vampires will just make new Brothers, and you'll just make more _lessers,_ and the war will go on and on and on—"

"You said it yourself. There's no end game here. Everyone, except maybe the Omega, knows that the Lessening Society is going to lose this war." Jake sounded surprisingly matter of fact about a defeat that would entail his death. Then again, he'd had more time than Hadrian to reflect on how irrevocably _fucked _he was. "All that anyone cares about anymore, including the _Fore-lesser_, is staying alive one day at a time. You bringing in even one or two Brothers would make L look good in the Omega's eyes. It would give him a new lease on his life and his position."

"Uh-huh. And what will he give me if I do this for him? Unlike you _lessers_, I don't kill vampires for the _fun _of it. This is a job to me."

"The _Fore-lesser _would be willing to pay you."

Hadrian laughed. "Pay me in what, Monopoly money? The Lessening Society hasn't got jack."

"Actually, we still have some cash saved from the days when X was in charge. He was very dedicated about raising money for us."

Hadrian didn't know why, but he immediately pictured a _lesser_ bake sale. He shook his head to clear it of the disconcerting image of undead vampire slayers peddling brownies, cookies, and lemon bars. Of course that wasn't want X had done. He'd probably sold crank. "My fee isn't less than—" Hadrian told his cousin. "Often I charge more. And that's just for a male civilian. It'll be more for a Brother."

There was a long pause.

"That's a lot."

"It is. I'm very good at what I do."

"I'll have to check with L."

"Fine. Be sure to tell him that that price doesn't include expenses. If he really wants to hire me, he'll have to pay my airfare to New York."

Hadrian hung up and hit the shower. He was so sore that the hot water felt as good as sex. As he bathed, he wondered whether Jake would call back at all. He'd quoted a truly outrageous sum, partly in the hopes that the _Fore-lesser_ wouldn't be able or willing to pay him. Then, he wouldn't have to risk life and limb in Caldwell in a war in which he had no business on behalf of the fucking _lessers_. Christ, he hated the _lessers_. That whole experience with Xavier had left a bad taste in his mouth as far as the Society was concerned. Besides, he couldn't forgive them for what they had done to Jake. It did not good to tell himself that Jake had been the one who'd signed on with them. He hadn't had to do that. He could have left town with Hadrian; Hadrian would have looked after him. The _lessers_ were all sociopaths, more or less, even the dull ones. It was in their nature to take advantage of the stupid and weak. It had been Jake's responsibility not to be stupid, not to be a victim.

Yet, as much as he disliked the _lessers_, Hadrian didn't dislike their money, not by any means. He had no objection to their money at all; he was happy to take it off their hands. If they agreed to pay his price— How could he resist that kind of payout? And he did feel bad for his hapless cousin. Poor Jake.

_There's plenty of money to be made here_, he reminded himself. _As for Jake, you couldn't save him, even if you went to Caldwell. You couldn't save him no matter how many vampires you killed. You could kill every vampire in New York, and a _lesser_ would get Jake in the end. It's like you told yourself five years ago. Being miserable with him won't make him any less miserable. Putting yourself in danger with him won't mean that he's in any less danger. _

Still, if Jake was going to die violently in Caldwell, Hadrian couldn't let him die alone and unmourned.

He was toweling off when his phone rang again. He picked it up. "So. What did your boss say?"

Jake sounded much more cheerful than he had before. "He says your ticket will be waiting for you under the name Lazardo at Los Angeles International Airport. And, hey, have a good flight."


	2. Chapter 2

Caldwell hadn't changed much since Hadrian had left it. Xavier's dojo had burnt down and, in the city center, a few new clubs had opened, but, in general, it was still the same dark, gritty Caldwell he remembered.

Hadrian's airplane had arrived in New York earlier that evening, but he had insisted on going out to hunt right away. "What clothes did you bring me?" He'd asked Jake, whom he'd told to drive out to his hotel. The Lessening Society had offered to find and pay for a room for him, but Hadrian had refused. He didn't want the _lessers_ to know where he would be sleeping. The only person whom he trusted with his address in Caldwell was his cousin. "Something that you've worn once already, right?"

Jake had looked confused. He was big, bigger than Hadrian; Hadrian had always thought that it was sort of ironic that someone with the physique of a show wrestler should be so easily pushed around. Jake had been handsome once, but now that he'd paled out, he was like a paint-by-numbers picture. He'd brought a laundry basket full of unwashed clothes with him as Hadrian had requested, but he clearly hadn't known what Hadrian had wanted with them. "Why do you need my clothes?" He'd asked.

"The Brothers won't approach me if they think that I'm a human," Hadrian had said, going through the laundry. "I need to look and smell like a _lesser_." If Hadrian could smell the sweet scent of the _lessers_, then there was no question whether the vampires could smell it, too.

"You'll be okay, right?" Jake had asked, anxiously.

"_Now _is not the time for you to start worrying about me." Hadrian hadn't said the rest of what he had been thinking—_if you were going to worry about me, you shouldn't have bothered calling_. "I'll be fine—assuming that I can find something of yours that fits—"

At last, Hadrian had found a black shirt that wasn't too loose—an opponent wouldn't be able to grab hold of it—and a pair of black jeans that fit at the legs and waist. He'd had to roll them up at the ankles because Jake was so much taller than him. The garments had smelt so strongly of _lesser _that it had been hard for Hadrian to breathe, but, just to be safe, he had dusted them generously with real baby powder. He had hoped that this would help him pass as a junior _lesser_, one that hadn't paled out yet. The vampires might be more willing to approach him if they thought that he was inexperienced and untried. At last, he had thrust his lead pipe through his belt. Jake had brought that over, too; he had found it in a closet at their family's old house. "I'll call you when it's all over. Don't wait up," Hadrian had said as he had left.

Hadrian had heard about those of the vampires' regular hangouts that the _lessers_ knew about from his cousin. There was a nightclub called Zero-Sum, an Italian restaurant called Sal's… Hadrian had decided to prowl pointedly around near one of their places until someone challenged him.

In the end, he was two or three blocks from Sal's when he got his first bite. _So, it really is that easy. No wonder the hookers in Caldwell are doing so well for themselves. _Hadrian waited until he was sure that the vampire had seen him. Then, he turned and ran.

He didn't sprint, because he wasn't trying to escape. He wanted to find an empty alley in which they could do business. The only rule of the war between the Black Dagger Brotherhood and the _lessers_ was that all the battles had to take place out of the sight of the humans. No one wanted to deal with human interference. Hadrian approved. He didn't want to end up under arrest for disturbing the peace. Few places on earth were as boring as a prison bullpen.

So, Hadrian jogged along, glancing into alleyways—in this one, a drug deal was taking place; there were cars parked in this one—trying to resist the temptation to glance back at the Brother, who was following him at a distance, no doubt alert for an ambush. Hadrian couldn't believe just how _big_ the fucker was. None of the male civilians he had fought had looked anything like this. At six feet six inches tall, the Brother towered above Hadrian. But his most outstanding feature wasn't either his height or his build. It was his hair. He had enough of it to stuff a sofa, and, in spite of the harsh glare of the streetlights, Hadrian saw that it was all different colors—blond and brown and red. Hadrian would have thought that this vampire was too _pretty_ to pose much of a challenge if it hadn't been for his size. As it was, he had to wonder whether he stood a chance against such a warrior. As he thought about it, he felt a familiar lightening in his chest and stomach, as though they were balloons being pumped full of helium. These kinds of moments, when he anticipated a tough, thrilling battle, were almost sweeter than the actual battle itself.

Finally, an empty alley. Some enterprising young thug had smashed the nearby streetlight, so, even if a human were to glance in from the street, he wouldn't be able to see anything. Hadrian turned into it, slipped his lead pipe from his belt, and spun it expertly, enjoying its familiar feel, its satisfying solidity in his grip. The corollary of the only rule of the _lesser_-vampire war was that no one could use guns. Nothing was as sure to draw human attention as gunshots. Hadrian didn't mind. As far as he was concerned, the no guns rule gave him a chance to be creative. He had done all of his killing in his teens with this lead pipe. Having it back in his hand, he felt as though he was getting reacquainted with an old friend.

The vampire entered the alley an instant after Hadrian, daggers drawn. His eyes—canary yellow eyes—gleamed in the darkness, like a cat's, as he glanced about himself quickly, clearly expecting to be bushwhacked by several _lessers_ at once_._ Hadrian, ready and waiting, swung his lead pipe easily, loosely. "There's only one of you?" The Brother asked at last. He sounded a little surprised.

Hadrian nodded once. He didn't want to waste time on pre-fight banter. "Let's do this," he said.

The vampire didn't wait to be asked twice. He came at Hadrian like a freight train, all impossible power and speed. The sight of him moving sucked all the breath out of Hadrian's lungs. Nothing so big should be able to move so unbelievably _fast_.

If Hadrian had allowed himself another second of shock, he would have died then and there. But he recovered himself at the last possible instant and shook off his surprise. Then, he did one of those things that made him only "sort of" human. He _flipped_ time.

Suddenly, fast was slow. As the color and sound drained from the world in a rush, leaving it black, white, and silent, the vampire's pace slowed to a crawl, and his moves became easy to predict. Knowing that this suspended, surreal state of affairs wouldn't last longer than a few seconds, Hadrian stepped inside the vampire's reach, and smashed him as hard as he could in the head, as though he were a batter trying to knock a baseball into orbit. He swore he saw teeth fly as, still in slow motion, the vampire went sprawling. Hadrian leapt clear of him—not fast enough. Color and sound bled back into the world, time started working normally again, and one of the Brother's daggers caught him on the shoulder, slicing through his clothes to lay his skin and muscles open.

The fight had lasted less than thirty seconds and it was already all over. No one could get cracked in the face with a lead pipe and keep going. Hadrian had swung the thing as hard as he could. He had swung it so hard that, when it had connected with the vampire's skull, his hands had smarted and stung; he had swung it so hard that the end of his pipe had bent. His reward for his efforts was the sight of the vampire's face. It didn't look quite as _pretty _as it had looked before. Already it was starting to discolor and swell. His nose had been knocked off center; his mouth had been smashed like a piece of overripe fruit. Both nose and mouth were a welter of blood. But the worst damage had been done to the vampire's cheekbone. Hadrian had no doubt at all that he had shattered it.

The vampire was on the ground on all fours, struggling to get to his feet, but his movements were as clumsy and labored as though he were trapped underwater. Hadrian went over to him, and, standing a safe distance away, smacked him once more with the lead pipe, this time at the base of his neck. Unconsciousness was immediately. _Lights out, Lucy_, Hadrian thought.

And then _another _vampire turned into the alley at a dead run. Hadrian swore. He had forgotten that the Brothers worked in _pairs_.

The new vampire—an ugly, scarred bastard, whose eyes were as black as pitch—took one look at the first vampire, stretched blood-spattered and senseless in the street and uttered an animal roar of rage that made the hairs on the back of Hadrian's neck stand on end. Then, he charged. Maybe it was because he was taking Hadrian much more seriously than the first vampire had, now that he had seen what had happened to his Brother, or maybe it was because he was mad as hell, but whatever the reason, he seemed to be moving a lot _faster _than Hadrian's first opponent.

Hadrian flipped time again, transforming the world into an old film, but, in spite of having stretched the seconds out to the length of minutes, he knew that he couldn't get away with attacking the vampire. The son of a bitch was moving too fast. Instead, he rolled out of his way, but even so, he only narrowly evaded the vampire's blows. This Brother's reflexes were better than the last's.

The universe revved up around him again, like a THX surround sound system. Hadrian emerged into real time to find the vampire practically on top of him, his dagger an arc of movement that was sure to open his throat. "Fuck!" He couldn't flip time again so soon. Even if he tried, it wouldn't work. There was nothing for it, but to do the other thing that made him only sort of human. Even as the dagger hit him, he _dissolved_ into smoke and resolved a few yards away from the vampire.

If the vampire had charged him again right at that instant, he probably would have died. Just as he couldn't flip time back to back, he couldn't dissolve and resolve back to back either, and dissolving and resolving always left him a little unsteady on his feet. At that moment, with both of his ultimate attacks on cooldown, capable of being knocked down by a feather, he was the weakest that he had been all evening. Fortunately, the vampire was too surprised to press his advantage. He thought he was fighting a _lesser_, not a human, but even so, he had probably never had a _lesser _teleport away from him before.

That moment of stunned silence lasted only two or three seconds, but that was all the time that Hadrian needed to recover. He flipped time, charged the vampire, and, holding his pipe like a lance, struck him solidly in the solar plexus with its bent end. He put the entire weight of his body and all the momentum of his charge into that single blow. The skin was stripped from his palms as the pipe shifted in his grip. He felt the impact of the blow shuddering up his arms.

Time sped up again, just in time for Hadrian to see droplets of blood burst from the vampire's mouth. He took a step back—then, another—then, fell to his knees, as his legs buckled and gave way beneath him. Hadrian walked up to him and cracked him over the head while he knelt there, helpless. He fell face forward and lay still.

To Hadrian, who was disoriented after flipping time so much, and who was running high on adrenaline as well, the world seemed to snap back to normal speed only now that his enemies had been dispatched. As though awakening from a stupor, he realized that he was standing in an intensely silent alley—the silence seemed to press in on his ears—panting and soaked through with freezing sweat. Every part of him hurt. His skinned palms hurt; because of his desperate, last minute lunge, his arms hurt, too, from wrist to shoulder. The gash on his shoulder hurt out of all proportion to its seriousness, for, although it was gushing blood, he could tell that it wasn't going to kill him. But it pleased him to know that, as bad as he felt, his opponents felt worse. If, of course, they were capable of feeling anything. He went from the first body to the second, nudging them with his pipe. The vampires were unconscious and probably unhappy—or they would be when they woke up, if they woke up; it was doubtful that the second Brother would, after whatever had happened to his organs—but they weren't actually dead. Mission accomplished.

Jake, who had perhaps forgotten how small and thin Hadrian was, had clearly been worried, once he'd gotten a good look at his cousin, that he wouldn't be able to even kill a Brother, much less take one alive. But, as much as he might have wanted, Jake hadn't been able to take back what he'd said on the phone—that the _Fore-lesser_ wanted a live prisoner. Hadrian amused himself for a while, imagining how the _Fore-Lesser _would react if he brought in _two _vampires to be interrogated. Two members of the Black Dagger Brotherhood, alive and helpless, when the _Fore-lesser_ hadn't thought that anyone could kill _one_, when his own, precious _lessers_ hadn't been able to kill _one_, except by trickery, even when they outnumbered him! The man would probably shit his pants.

Still, facts were facts, and the fact of the matter was that there was no way that Hadrian could transport _both_ of these vampires. He wasn't sure that he could even transport _one _of them. They were both so much bigger than him. How was he supposed to lift either one of them into a car? A car that he didn't have.

Hadrian shook his head. He was feeling a little giddy after his fight, but he knew that needed to concentrate. First things first. He took four ampoules of the concentrated horse tranquilizer that X had used to use to neutralize male civilians back when he had been alive—Jake had scored some from the _lessers_ for him—and gave both Brothers twice the recommended dose, right in the neck. If it killed them, whatever. Hadrian wasn't going to take a chance that they might wake up before he was ready for them, lest he end up being killed. Once he was sure that they were staying down and out, he went to the alley where he had seen the cars. It was the work of a moment to hotwire one and bring it around to where his former opponents lay.

Now came the tricky part—actually getting one of the vampires into his newly acquired vehicle. "You," he said at last. "You, with the fruity hair. You were my first opponent, so I'm going to kill you first." Hadrian didn't think that the second vampire was going to last another five minutes, anyway. He definitely wasn't going to live long enough to see the _Fore-lesser_. Hadrian was damned if he was going to throw out his back, putting that Brother into his car. He might not survive being moved, and, if he did, he would just die enroute.

Just as Hadrian had expected, it proved _impossible_ to get the vampire into his stolen car; he could barely move him. He might as well have tried to stuff a dead cow in there. Actually, Hadrian was reminded vividly of the times he had gone hunting with his father when he had been a boy, and they had had to get the deer that they'd shot onto their truck's roof. Eventually, Hadrian had to dissolve and resolve into the car while holding onto the vampire's arms. When he dissolved and resolved, anything touching him—such as his clothes and lead pipe—went with him, so he knew that by touching the vampire, he could transport him with him. It was extremely cramped, once he'd resolved the both of them into the back seat of his car, but he was able to clamber out the other way, and then shut the doors on his prize at last.

Naturally, before Hadrian got behind the wheel, he searched his prisoner thoroughly, and swiped his phone and his weapons. Of course, if the bastard woke up during their drive, Hadrian was probably dead, whether the Brother had weapons or not, but if he woke up groggy and unarmed, Hadrian might have time to drug him again quickly or swerve the car into oncoming traffic to kill him before he dissolved out and resolved to safety at the speed of light. He had had to do things like that before.

"Your phone isn't password protected?" He challenged the unconscious vampire in his backseat, as he scrolled through his contact list. "Whose phone isn't password protected anymore?" Cocky-ass bastards, who never think that they're going to lose a fight. Or, people who use their phone so often and with such urgency that they don't have time to be always entering a password. It suddenly occurred to Hadrian that the rest of the Brotherhood might be expecting hourly text updates from this pair of warriors. That's what he would insist on, if he were the head of their band of merry men. If that _was_ the case, the rest of the Brotherhood might come to investigate when these two vampires failed to check in with their king; and Hadrian did _not _plan on fighting the entire Brotherhood by himself. Especially not if they brought their pet dragon with them, the one that Jake had told him about. He was only being paid so much for this job.

So, he pulled away from the curb as quickly as he could. As he drove, he checked a few of the vampire's received and sent text messages. He didn't have to read very many of them before he'd learned that this vampire had a female—Cormia. Wasn't that sweet. Hadrian was silent for a while after that, thinking.

Then, one-handed, he texted Cormia. "Hey, _leelan_, meet me at the mansion's gates in half an hour. I have a surprise for you. (Smiley face)." That smiley face was a nice touch, Hadrian decided.

He took the next exit ramp, heading for the royal mansion. Jake had said that the _lessers' knew_ of its location in Caldwell's suburbs—he had even told Hadrian where it was—but they had never dared to attack it. The security was just too tight. _Let's see how well the security stands up to someone who can dissolve and resolve and flip time_, Hadrian thought. He only needed a few seconds.

Probably, all the Brothers would be out hunting this time of night. Or, even if there were a few still hanging around the mansion, protecting their king, they certainly wouldn't expect anything to happen inside–actually inside—their protected gates. The advantage of surprise had served Hadrian well against the two Brothers whom he'd faced so far. They had underestimated him, and had been unprepared for what he could do, and, because of that, they had fallen. Maybe the rest of the Brotherhood would underestimate him, too.

As for 'Cormia,' if she didn't check her phone, didn't receive his text message, and didn't come out to meet him, Hadrian didn't lose anything. But if she did get the text message, and came out as he hoped she would…

Well, he hadn't lied. He had a surprise for her, all right.


	3. Chapter 3

Hadrian was halfway to the _lessers'_ headquarters with not just one, but _two _prisoners unconscious in his car. By all rights, he should have been ecstatic—but he wasn't. It had been a wildly successful night, but he wasn't even _happy_.

For one thing, he resented the _Fore-lesser_ like hell. Hadrian was the one who had done all the work; he was the one with the cut on his shoulder that had, mercifully, stopped pouring blood. Yet the _Fore-lesser_ was the one who got to look good in front of the Omega. Hadrian didn't especially want to look good in front of the Omega himself—in fact, what he wanted was to stay as far away from that thing as he could—but he didn't want anyone else taking credit for his work, certainly not a _lesser._ If he had known that this was how he had been going to feel back in California, he would never have taken this job.

For another thing, he had remembered a conversation that he had had with a vampire named Bastian back on the West Coast. Bastian had hired Hadrian to kidnap one of his rivals, another vampire named Fenwick, whom he'd wanted brought back to his headquarters. Hadrian hadn't asked why. He hadn't needed to know to do his job, so what did he care? But Bastian had given Hadrian one memorable instruction: "Be sure to kill Fenwick's _shellan, _Xanthe. Whenever one of our race drinks the blood of someone of the opposite gender, we can find them afterwards, no matter how long it's been and no matter where they go. No doubt Fenwick and Xanthe have been feeding from each other. I won't have Xanthe rousing Fenwick's brothers and sending them after me."

_Whenever one of our race drinks the blood of someone of the opposite gender, we can find them afterwards, no matter how long it's been and no matter where they go_. Hadrian's hands were clenched so tightly on the steering wheel that his knuckles had turned white. He had captured this Brother's _shellan_, but what if he had let another female feed from him before? It wasn't impossible. Who knew how old he was? He could have had several serious relationships.

If there _was _a female out there who had tasted this Brother's blood, the rest of the Brotherhood was sure to know who she was and where to find her. Maybe, supposing that Phury had been required to check in, his Brothers had gone and gotten this female already. Maybe she was tracking Phury—and, thus, Hadrian—at this very instant.

How far, he wondered, could a vampire teleport at once? Quite far, maybe. Maybe, any second, the entire Brotherhood would appear in the road, pet dragon in tow. Wildly, Hadrian considered cutting the vampires' throats and pushing them out of the car, never mind the pedestrians and oncoming traffic. Mentally, he slapped himself. _Get a grip, moron! You can't panic. You _can't. _Think, god damn it, think!_

Hadrian thought. As long as he kept moving, he was safe. Even if the Brotherhood was using a woman to track him, if they teleported to where she said he was, by the time they got to where he'd been, he would have moved on. Hadrian would be fine, unless they brought their female with them on their search, which wasn't likely. Few male vampires would expose a female to danger; on the contrary, they were very protective of their women. Hadrian still had the scars from Fenwick to prove it.

Another advantage in Hadrian's favor was the impending sunrise; vampires _burned_ in the daylight. If the Brotherhood didn't find him within the next few hours, they weren't going to find him at all, as long as he finished with his prisoners before night fell again. One thing, though, was clear to him now. He couldn't take the vampires to the _lessers' _compound. The _lessers_ were sure to try and keep them alive all the next day and night, at least—longer than was safe. Once the prisoners had stopped moving, and had been settled in one place, the Brothers would track them down easily, and after dark, when they could move freely, they would butcher the _lessers_. Actually, come to think of it, hadn't something like that happened already?

Ordinarily, Hadrian wouldn't care what the fuck happened to the _lessers_, but if the Brotherhood tortured some of them before they killed them, Hadrian's name might come up, and then his life wouldn't be worth _shit_. Stick a fork in him, he'd be _done_.

With a curse, Hadrian turned off the main road sharply and drove down a heavily wooded side street, besides which a roadside sign read, "Cedar Ledge Campgrounds—5 Miles. Closed for the Season."

XXX

Phury, son of Ahgony, awoke in such tremendous pain, he almost blacked out again at once.

_God. _He had never hurt so much before and he and pain were old friends. His face felt as though it had swollen to twice its normal size; he was seeing double in his right eye, and, when he tried, he couldn't open his mouth all the way. His skin was caked with crackling blood from his smashed nose and mouth. Probably, his cheekbone, nose and jaw had all been broken. Jane would be so pissed. After all the effort that she had put in fixing his face that first time—

It suddenly occurred to Phury that he wasn't thinking as clearly as he ought to have been, even taking the blow to the head into account. Ordinarily, pain gave his thoughts a kind of clarity, but, right now, his head felt as though it had been stuffed with cotton balls. His thoughts were being suffocated under their fuzzy, hot weight. Had he been drugged? That would explain how fucking sick he felt—too nauseous even to stand, and… Wait a minute. Where the fuck was he anyway?

It hurt his head to look around, but he did so nonetheless. He was in a clearing, deep in the woods. His hands had been chained behind him around the trunk of an old, thick tree. Immediately, Phury tried to dematerialize out of his chains, but it didn't work. The sick feeling in the pit of his stomach was worse than ever now. Ordinary chains couldn't hold a vampire, but a _lesser's _chains could. Phury had been worked over by _lessers _once before, and it wasn't an experience that he wanted to relive. But if the _lesser _who'd knocked him out had taken him prisoner, why wasn't he at the Lessening Society's headquarters?

He swiveled his swimming head back around, glanced up, looking for his captors—and his heart sprang into his throat.

_Cormia_.

She stood across the clearing from him, bound to a tree, as he was bound, not just at her wrists, like him, but at both her wrists and ankles. Phury's body lunged forward, without waiting for his brain, and was brought up short by his tree. Moving so fast had made his head feel as though it had been pierced by a white-hot wire, but he didn't care. Rational questions, like, "How did she get here? How was she stolen from out of the mansion?" were swept away by a rush of pure, animal rage that went roaring through him, like a wildfire, at the sight of Cormia's disheveled blond hair and tear filled green eyes. He was going to _kill_ whoever had touched his _shellan_. He was going to _kill_ him.

"Phury!" Cormia cried as soon as she saw him move. "Are you all right?" Cormia had woken up before Phury had, and she had spent her time since then begging her captor to let her go to him. If he would just unchain her from her tree and chain her hands together in front of her, she would be able comfort her _hellren_. He didn't have to undo her ankle cuffs if he didn't like; what did she care? She wouldn't have wanted to escape without Phury anyway. All she wanted was to be near him. Hanging forward from the chains that held him to his tree, his face almost unrecognizable beneath the bloating and bruises, he had looked like he was dying right before her eyes. For Cormia, it had been pure torture, having to stand there, watching Phury die without being able to do anything for him.

"I'm fine, _leelan_," Phury said. As frightened as Cormia was, the sound of her voice cleared the raw, red mist of rage from his eyes. He had to stay calm, he realized, for her. Hence the "I'm fine"; it was a total lie, but he couldn't bear the expression of fear on her face as it was. His words came out strained as he struggled to keep his anger and pain out of them. "Don't worry. Everything will be all right."

While he reassured her, his eyes found the person responsible for their suffering—for _her _suffering. He was going to make the bastard pay for what he had done to his _shellan _with _blood_. The man—it was the same man that he had fought in the alley—no surprises there—was standing beside Cormia. Phury could have screamed. _The man who had beaten him senseless, and who had kidnapped his female, was standing right beside her!_ _Right beside her!_ The message was clear—he could do whatever he wanted with her, and Phury couldn't stop him. It was beyond insulting. Phury didn't let males get too close to his _shellan_ _ever_, so for _this_ male to first curb stomp him in a fight, and then come up close to his female, made him want to go fucking primal on his ass. Especially when he thought about what had happened while he'd been knocked out. This piece of shit had _touched_ his Cormia, and touched her _roughly_, too, when he'd dragged her from the mansion and chained her to her tree. Cormia must have been terrified…

Phury might have been known as the noblest of the Brothers, but he wasn't feeling very noble now. He didn't want to just kill this man—he wanted to kill his parents, his siblings, his spouse, his children, his pets. He wanted blot out his whole family, root, shoot, and god damn branch.

He forced himself to calm down and observe his opponent closely—anything to give himself some kind of an edge. Back before they'd fought, Phury had assumed that this guy was a _lesser_. Who else but a _lesser _would lead him down a dark alley? Who else but a _lesser_ would fight him? A human wouldn't. Most humans took one look at the size of him and got out of his way. But now, Phury realized that if this guy _were _a _lesser_, he would have to have just been turned. He hadn't paled out whatsoever. Phury refused to believe that a junior _lesser_ could have brought him down unaided. It just wasn't possible.

Now that he thought about it, the way that this guy had fought had been completely out of character for a _lesser_, too. _Lessers_ didn't fight alone. Even though they were stronger than any human, they were still no match for a Brother by themselves. When Phury had first followed this guy into that alley, and had learned that he was by himself, he had assumed that more _lessers _would enter the alley after he had committed himself to his fight. They would cut off his exit and try to overwhelm him by sheer force of numbers. If Z hadn't been only a half-minute behind him, Phury would have hung back and waited for back up. Actually, that begged the question—what had happened to his twin?

On top of everything else, this guy's baby powder scent was starting to _wear off_. In a _lesser_, that was unheard of. Phury smelled blood and sweat—_human_ blood and sweat. But this guy couldn't be a _human_. It was unlikely that a junior _lesser _had taken Phury down, but it was unthinkable that a human had done so. Besides, the humans didn't know about _lessers_ or vampires. This guy knew the location of the First Family's mansion; after all, he had taken Cormia from there. And no one, human, _lesser_, or vampire, ought to be able to move as fast as this guy had moved… So, what the _hell _was he?

Whatever he really was, he didn't just smell like a human, he looked like one, too, and a pretty boring one at that. His appearance was so _ordinary_, so _unexceptional. _ He was neither short nor tall; neither fat nor thin. His body was somewhere between those extremes; in a word, it was _average. _His face was pleasant, unremarkable, wholly forgettable. Phury didn't know how he would describe it to his Brothers once he and Cormia had escaped. Phrases like, "He looked like a librarian from an after school special," and "You know—not clever, but not stupid, youngish—" were the best that he could do.

The guy's hair was mousy brown and flopperty thick, as run-of-the-mill as the rest of him. His eyes were— _Holy shit._ Those pale eyes were all wrong for that otherwise everyday, pleasant face. They almost looked like they belonged to a different person. Their color and shape didn't interest Phury, but their expression did. They were as cold, incisive, and sharp as filed steel, and not merely ruthless and unfeeling, but absolutely indifferent to death and life alike. Still, Phury was a three hundred year old vampire. He wouldn't have found those eyes quite as chilling as he did if Cormia had been back at the mansion, safe, instead of here, chained to a fucking tree.

Phury decided not to bother asking any questions. After all, odds were that they wouldn't be answered anyway. "Listen up," he said. He spoke as coolly as he could because he wanted his opponent to take him seriously. Cormia's life might depend on it. If he were to shout obscenities, as he rather felt like doing—not that the words filthy enough to express what he thought of this bastard had been invented yet—he might end up looking panicky, and then his threats would be dismissed as bluffs. "I don't know who you are or why you're doing this, but you're in a hell of a lot of trouble."

The human—or whatever he was—raised his eyebrows. "_I'm _in a lot of trouble?" He echoed. "How do you figure? _You're_ the one tied to a tree. You're in no position to be making threats."

Phury ignored this. "Taking _me_ captive was insane, but taking a female captive, too, was beyond insane; it was suicidal. You're going to have males coming for you, the kind of males that you wouldn't want to meet even on _friendly_ terms. They're going to _kill _you. Whatever you did to kick my ass won't work on all of them."

The human shrugged with such an air of supreme unconcern, it just had to have been feigned. "Well, if they kill me, so what? We all have to die sometime."

"They won't kill you _quickly_," Phury said sharply. "Trust me. You don't know what they're capable of, but I do. The smartest thing that you can do right now is to untie us."

The human laughed, not for long, but with real merriment. "Oh, really? And then what? I suppose that you'll just walk away?"

"I'm not going to gut you in front of my _shellan_," Phury said stiffly. He meant it, too. If he was able to talk himself down from his tree, the first thing that he was going to do was take Cormia to Havers. If Cormia had been drugged, like him, then she needed to see a doctor. He could always cut this idiot's throat later.

"Right. And I'm sure that your _dangerous friends_ would go easy on me, too," the human said mockingly. "They'd be so thankful that I _only _curb-stomped you and kidnapped you—and your woman as well—that they'd settle for running me out of Caldwell, instead of wringing my neck. Is that what I'm meant to believe? Tell you what. Here's _my _idea—" And the human went on in a tone that was no longer as light as before, "You tell me what I want to know, and I won't cut your lady friend here up, bit by little bit."

As Cormia blanched and tensed, Phury's fangs shot out to their full length. "You wouldn't fucking _dare_," he hissed.

"Would you be willing to bet her life on that? My cousin's a _lesser_, you know," the human went on, gently, softly. "He says that, even though they're impotent, they have their ways of satisfying themselves with women. For instance, even though they can't fuck women themselves, they can fuck them with objects. Things like broken beer bottles—knives—" As he spoke, the human withdrew a knife from inside his jacket. It wasn't anything special; it was an ordinary chef's knife. Nonetheless, somehow, the sight of it scared Phury more than anything else ever had. "I'm not a _lesser_. I don't _want _to hurt her," the human said. "I think it would be a _shame_ to hurt her. After all, she is so beautiful—'green and gold and fair,' like it says in that poem about the willow. You won't make me hurt her, will you? You'll answer all my questions, so that I won't have to start thinking of creative places to stick my knife." And Phury saw in those cold, pale eyes his delicate, gentle Cormia, who had grown up in the sheltered world of the Chosen being _tortured_…

He lost it. He _absolutely _lost it.

He flung himself against his chains like a goaded bull. Ever since he had woken up, Phury had felt as though there were tiny sledgehammers pounding away inside his head. Now, those sledgehammers were going into overdrive. The din that they made was deafening. Phury's handcuffs bit into his wrists until they bled, but he felt no pain. Actually, he didn't even feel his chains; he had forgotten about them. He only remembered them when one of his wrists broke in its cuff as he tried to wrench himself free of it. He _did _feel _that_; but the pain only made him angrier. He took refuge in his anger. Anger was good. Anger was safe. Anger was so much better than fear and helplessness. It was against fear and helplessness that he was fighting as much as his chains, and he fought them until the roots of his tree moved in the earth and its wood creaked and groaned aloud.

At first, the human watched him, fascinated but unafraid. After a while, contempt began to show in his eyes and on his face. "Stupid. So stupid," he said. He knelt at Cormia's feet, pulled the thin fabric of the skirt of her dress taut, and slashed it with his knife up to her hip. Cormia uttered a frightened cry as the cloth tore noisily.

That sound was what snapped Phury out of his animal fit at last. In an instant, he became a rational, thinking being once more. In an instant, he realized all at once that his actions had had no effect—that, while he had squandered his strength uselessly, Cormia had been placed in awful danger—that if he didn't do something _now_, she'd be tortured right in front of him. But what could he do, tied to a tree? He couldn't get off of it. He'd already tried as hard as he could.

The human ran the blade of his knife lightly, almost playfully, up the inside of Cormia's leg. Cormia began to cry. Parts of the inside of Phury's head screamed at other parts of the inside of his head: _Do something! Say something! Make him stop!_

"Wait! God damn it, wait!" He screamed so suddenly that he startled even himself. "What the fuck do you want to know, anyway?"

The human straightened. He didn't sheathe his knife, but he did take one or two steps away from Cormia. His pale, soft-colored eyes glowed with quiet satisfaction. Phury would have liked nothing better than to gouge those eyes out.

At least, the human didn't waste time by gloating out loud. "How many of you are there?" He asked. "In the Brotherhood?"

Phury spoke without hesitation. He had always been loyal to his Brothers; he would have given his life for them. In fact, he had come very close to giving his life for Zsadist twice. But he wasn't being asked to give his life for his Brothers now. He was being asked to give _Cormia's _life for them, and he couldn't do that. Cormia was his _shellan_; his bonding scent was all over her. Her name had been cut into his back, symbolizing the fact that she was a _part_ _of him_. Protecting Cormia was Phury's _biological imperative_. The desire to defend her was hard-wired into his genes, impossible to refuse, or even resist. Even more so than his Brothers—his friends of countless years—Cormia came _first_. His DNA made that an axiomatic, self-evident _fact_. "There are five of us, not counting the king and the new initiates. _Five_, you motherfucker," Phury answered heatedly. "Do you really think that you can fight all five of us at once?" "No, but I won't have to, if you keep talking to me like that," the human said coolly.

Phury hardly heard the threat. Frankly, he didn't care what happened to him. All he could think about anymore was Cormia.

"Which of you is the one eating the _lessers_?"

"_What?_" Phury stared. "Do you mean _Butch?_" As soon as he said the name, he wanted to bite out his tongue. Why the hell hadn't he lied? He should have directed this prick to Rhage or Zsadist, someone who couldn't lose to him, no matter what. But he was just too fucking rattled to think. _Jesus, cop, I'm sorry if I've put you in danger_. Phury tried to tell himself that Butch would understand. If he and Marissa had been kidnapped instead of Phury and Cormia, Butch would be doing exactly what Phury was doing now.

"Does this Butch have a last name? What does he look like?" The human thoughtfully polished his knife on his shirtsleeve.

Phury looked him right in the eyes. "You're asking all the wrong questions if you want to live out the rest of your pitiful lifespan in peace, human."

He couldn't even imagine what Vishous would do to this fucker if he managed to hurt Butch.

The human flashed him a smile. "Oh, so you're _concerned_ for me! How _sweet_. But you don't have to worry. For all you know, I'll outlive you all. And, just by the way? Arrogance doesn't really suit you, not in your current circumstances."

Phury gritted his teeth and told the human what he wanted to know. He didn't dare risk a lie. If he did, and was caught at it, or even if he didn't, but was suspected of it, the human might torture Cormia to force the truth out of him.

The rest of the human's questions were about Rhage and Vishous, or, as he called them, "the one that turns into a dragon," and "the one that shoots lightning from his hands." It wasn't easy, trying to tell him as little as possible, without _looking _like he was trying to tell him as little as possible. But, at least he didn't ask about Mary or Jane. Phury didn't know whether he would have been able to endanger his Brothers' _shellans_ in order to save his own. He didn't _want _to know.

At last, the human nodded, as though he had heard enough. "All right, then. I'm off," he said casually, for all the world as though he and Phury were old friends hanging out together in a bar, buying each other drinks and swapping stories. Phury was so stunned by his unconcerned departure, he almost didn't recover himself in time to say anything.

"What the fuck are you _doing_?" he raged at last, just as the human prepared to cross the tree line. "You said that you'd let us go if I answered your questions!"

The human glanced back at him. "No, I didn't," he answered. "I said that I wouldn't _hurt your female_ if you answered my questions. I haven't hurt her and I won't; I'm going to leave you both here, alive and unharmed. Who knows? Your friends might even find you, if they're quick enough."

Alarm bells went off in Phury's head. "What are you _talking _about? Hey! Come back here, you son of a bitch!" Phury shouted, as the human disappeared between the trees. "Come back here and at least unchain _her!_" His body shook with anger and frustration.

Across from him, Cormia was saying his name over and over, but he didn't realize it at first because her voice was almost unrecognizable. "Phury," she croaked. "Phury, _listen_."

Phury did, and, as soon as he heard what Cormia had, he felt his face go gray. _Oh, Jesus Christ, no_. _This can't be happening_. Birds. The forest was alive with birdsong. Phury looked up. Of course, he knew instinctively what he was going to see; he had known as soon as he had heard the birds. But, since he had refused to put the thought into words, even in his own head, lest he be swept away by despair—on other words, since he had refused to acknowledge their danger—it still came as a shock when he saw that the sky was a periwinkle blue tinged with gold and rose.

It was dawn. In a few minutes at most, the sun would be up.

The human had left Phury and his _shellan_ to burn alive.

Phury couldn't have described how he felt at that moment, when he realized that he and Cormia were going to die. There was shock; for a while, he was simply numb with shock. He couldn't hear, he couldn't see, he couldn't think. He felt as though someone had sucker punched him in the solar plexus. This hollow sensation was followed by grief as raw as an oozing wound—grief for Cormia, who didn't deserve this at all, grief for the life that they weren't going to get to live together—and hatred—hatred for the human, hatred for the uncaring sky and sun. Hatred even for himself. Why hadn't he been able to convince the human to let Cormia go? Was it because he had made some kind of mistake? Had there been something more that he could have said or done?

But, in the end, what Phury mostly felt, what showed on his face, was calm composure. He wasn't going to waste his last moments ranting and raving, and he couldn't allow himself to wallow in his regret and wretchedness. Knowing that he was about to die focused his mind like a diamond cutter, and all his thoughts now, were, as they had always been, for Cormia—what he could do to comfort her, how he could keep from distressing her. Cormia looked like he felt—like she was trying to hold it together for his sake.

After what felt like a long silence, but what was probably only a few seconds, Phury cleared his throat. "Look at me, Cormia," he said gently. All the tenderness that he had ever felt for her, all the tenderness that he would ever have felt for her, could be heard in his voice. "Don't look at anything else. Just look at me." He didn't want her to see how the world around them was getting brighter and brighter every second.

Cormia tried a brave smile, but it came out watery and weak. "I'm glad your eyes are yellow again." Her golden, fluting voice sounded a little strained, but only a little. Where had Phury heard that the mark of a true aristocrat was the way that they handled intense pressure without getting at all ruffled? There could be no question that Cormia was a female of worth. "They turned black a while ago. I'm glad they're back to normal. Did I ever tell you that, when I lived on the Other Side, I would go into the treasure room all the time to look at the jewels? They were the only things that weren't _white_ over there. My favorites were the citrines. When I first saw your eyes, that's what I remembered—those citrines, that little bit of color that was all the color that I'd had for so long." She choked up suddenly, and her eyes welled up with tears. "I thought that we'd have longer— I thought that we'd have young. A little boy or girl with your beautiful golden eyes. A cousin for Nalla."

_Oh, Jesus_. "Cormia—" Phury couldn't think about Zsadist or Bella or Nalla right now. He just couldn't. "Let's not think about all the things that we might have had but didn't. Let's think about all the things that we _did _have. I mean, I don't think that I had a single moment of happiness before I met you. My childhood wasn't—wasn't great—so—"

Pale bands of light shone through the trees, casting long shadows. Phury's skin was starting to burn and prickle. It was getting harder and harder for him to keep track of his thoughts. "I have so much to be grateful for," he managed at last.

Cormia bravely raised her chin. "Phury, I don't know what happens in the Fade, but let's promise that we'll go on like this always. Together."

Phury could only nod; for that moment, he was too choked up too speak. Recovering himself quickly, he said, "Whatever we do, wherever we go, we'll be together."

Those were the last words he spoke to his _shellan_. The next moment, the sun had _leapt _into the sky.

XXX

Hadrian had lied to the vampires. There was no chance that they would be found before the sun came up. If there had been, he would have had to kill them both himself, whatever he'd promised be damned. They couldn't be allowed to live, now that they had seen him.

The reason for the fairy tale had been that he had wanted to shut them up while he walked further into the forest. If he had told them flatly that they were going to die, there would have been more screaming and shouting, and he didn't have time for that. Bastian was calling him—he had checked his screen as soon as his phone had started buzzing—and he _always_ took Bastian's calls.

Ever since Hadrian had kidnapped Fenwick and killed his bitch _shellan_, Xanthe, Bastian, son of Szasz, had had him working more or less on retainer. Apparently, he had a job lined up for Hadrian on the west coast, so he was annoyed to hear that his prize assassin was out east. Of course, he wanted to know what Hadrian was doing out there and when he'd be back.

"I don't know," Hadrian said truthfully. He was usually honest with Bastian, who was one of the three people that he (mostly) trusted. The two of them had worked together a long time; by now, they were quite close. Hadrian had even lived with Bastian for some time in his forty million dollar penthouse while he'd recovered from shoulder surgery. Even once he had been well enough to move back out, Bastian had encouraged him to stay. "I've always wanted a pet," he'd said.

"The Lessening Society has hired me to kill as many members of the Black Dagger Brotherhood as I can," Hadrian explained. "You know what I think of _lessers_; but I've taken the assignment on as a personal challenge. My goal is to kill three or one and the dragon."

Bastian was amused and interested, nothing more. He wasn't especially fond of his race or anyone's race as far as Hadrian could tell. According to what he'd heard, Bastian's father, Szasz, had been born into the _glymera_, the vampire aristocracy, but he hadn't fit in with his class. He'd been too aggressive, too quick-tempered. He'd been always getting into fights. At last, something _really_ bad had happened; Hadrian didn't know what. After all, it had all taken place over three centuries ago. But, whatever it was, it had been so bad that not even Szasz's powerful family had been able to make it go away, or maybe they'd just been sick of their wayward son by then. Szasz had had to run for his life. That was how he'd wound up in California, where Bastian had been born in disgrace, in exile, and with a chip on his shoulder the size of a two by four.

"So how are things going?" he asked Hadrian. Hadrian could just imagine him: tall, dark, and stupidly handsome, dressed like he worked in Silicon Valley (read: urban hipster), and stretched out on his black and white ultramodern sofa.

"I'm alive and talking to you, aren't I?"

"So things are going well. And, if you're alive, that has to mean at least one of them is dead."

"At least one. Maybe two," Hadrian confirmed. "And a female. She was just collateral damage, though."

"There are hardly any _vampires_ who could kill a Brother," Bastian said approvingly. "What are the _lessers _paying you?"

Hadrian told him.

"Oh, Jesus Christ. That's _nothing_. They might as well pay you in _air._"

"It's more than what you pay me to kill your male civilians."

"_My _male civilians?" Bastian sounded more amused than ever. "Well, tell you what. If you get on the next plane back to SoCal, I'll start paying you twice what the _lessers _are paying you now to kill _my _male civilians."

"You really can't get along without me, can you, Bastian?" Hadrian spoke lightly, but the offer was genuinely tempting. He had no doubt that Bastian could make good on his word. The vampire seemed to have an unlimited cash flow. Hadrian didn't know how or from where he got his money. It was just one more detail he didn't care about.

"Think it over, Hadrian. It's easy money. Besides," and here, Bastian pulled out the big guns, "Quintessa misses you."

"Yeah, right," Hadrian said; but, in spite of his affected indifference, his heart started to beat faster at the very sound of her name.

Quintessa was Bastian's younger sister. Hadrian had always thought that her name was surprisingly pretty. Most vampire names were so _stupid_. When Hadrian had first met her, he'd half-expected her to introduce herself as Rhape.

Quintessa was like antique lace—delicate and fair. Hadrian liked her doll-like body, her close-set, coffee-colored eyes, her short cap of glossy, smooth black hair, the way she talked, like she was always tired. She was so soft and sweet spoken, one wouldn't think that butter would melt in her mouth. Hadrian would have never known that she was her brother's toughest enforcer and the trusted steward of his vast, underworld empire if Bastian hadn't told him so.

Of course, Hadrian liked Quintessa. Their chemistry between them had been awesome from the start. But they weren't going to end up together, and it wasn't because he was a human and she was a vampire, although that did have something to do with it. Mostly, it was because Hadrian was a hitman and hitmen made a lot of enemies. Not only the families of their victims, but often their own clients, hated them. Hadrian knew that if he got involved with Quintessa, some of the people whom he'd hurt might hurt her to try to hurt _him_. He couldn't let that happen, so he and Quintessa couldn't happen. There was no point in getting all angsty over it; that wouldn't change anything. They just couldn't happen.

But they could still be friends. Hadrian never called or texted Quintessa. Her contact information wasn't even in his phone in case somebody did to him what he had done to Phury. But he could call Bastian and have him give the phone to his sister and Quintessa could call him from her brother's phones. That was another reason that Hadrian made it a point not to miss any of Bastian's calls.

"She's in, you know. Why don't I put her on, let her say a few words?"

"Oh, no, I don't think that's—_fuck_." For Bastian had ignored what Hadrian was saying and had shouted for his sister already.

The next thing Hadrian heard was Quintessa's sultry voice. It sounded as though it belonged to a jazz singer and it went straight to Hadrian's head, the way his first taste of crisp, ultra-expensive, ultra-smooth vodka over ice had done.

"Hey, _nallum_," she said. Hadrian loved how she never addressed him by any of his _many _aliases, which he slipped into and out of, like old clothes, or by his real name, which he'd last heard so long ago, he felt like it belonged to someone else. Instead, she only addressed him as _nallum_, beloved. No matter what name he happened to be using, that's who he was to her. "Where are you?" She sounded as though she had just woken up, but then, she sounded like that all the time.

So Hadrian had the same conversation with her that he'd just had with Bastian. The only difference was that Quintessa didn't sound amused or interested in the least when she heard what he'd been hired to do. Instead, she was quiet a long time.

At last, she said gravely, "Take care of yourself out there, _nallum_."

"Don't worry. I will."

After hanging up, Hadrian walked back into the clearing where he'd left his captives. By now the birds were singing their little hearts out and the woods were flooded with sunshine. Nothing remained of the vampires but their clothes and two heaps of ashes. Hadrian poked through each of them with their pipes. His victims hadn't left as much as a bone fragment behind.

It was probably only because he'd just talked to Quintessa, but Hadrian felt rather sad as he sifted through the female's ashes. Technically, he'd kept his promise to the vampire. He hadn't hurt his woman. He had let the sun do that. But that didn't make him feel any better just as it didn't make her any less dead.

Hadrian hadn't liked to kill the female. In fact, he thought that her death was rather a shame. After all, she had been very beautiful.

Perhaps he should have given the Brothers the chance to buy him off. They probably had more money than the _lessers_ did. Once he'd proved his prowess, and taken Phury and Cormia captive, they might have been willing to ransom them back—and then pay Hadrian two or three times what the _lessers _were paying him to go back to SoCal. He would have been perfectly willing to take their money and go. As a mercenary, he was at the service of the highest bidder. Then again, he could have never brought himself to abandon his cousin. Besides, he realized gloomily, the vampires would never have dealt with them, not with their pride at stake.

Hadrian scattered the ashes with a single sweep of his pipe. For a brief, fleeting instant, all he wanted to do was catch the next plane out of New York and go home. Fuck the Brotherhood, fuck the _lessers_, and fuck his whiny cousin. He missed Quintessa.

But the feeling only lasted an instant. By the time that his phone started buzzing in his pocket, he was all business again.

He pulled it out and looked at it. Jake had texted him.

"The Fore-lesser wants to see you at eight at headquarters."


	4. Chapter 4

Wrath, son of Wrath, had seldom felt so grim. He gazed across his fairy princess' desk at his Brothers—and didn't they make a pitiful few without Darius and Tohrment and now Phury and Zsadist. Even with his piss poor vision, he could see that they were feeling as grim as he was.

Wrath was over three hundred years old, so he was still having trouble processing just how much shit had happened in the last twelve hours. How could it be possible that in twelve hours Zsadist had wound up hospitalized and Phury had been—Wrath didn't even want to think the word, but he made himself anyway—_killed_? Phury had been killed. He had been killed, and they didn't know who had been responsible for that, except that they could be reasonably sure that lessers hadn't killed him. When was the last time that two Brothers had been taken down by the _lessers _in a _street fight_? Maybe twenty of them could have done it, but if they had mobilized in those numbers, the humans would have seen them. That was the reason that Wrath only had two Brothers out every night.

On top of everything else, Cormia was missing. Wrath knuckled his aching eyes. He and his Brothers had all been hospitalized before. They'd lost males, good males, before, too, though it never got any easier. And females had gone missing before, only to be found alive afterwards; Wrath was hoping against hope that this might be one of those times. New enemies of his race had emerged and had been dealt with. But all in twelve hours? _Jesus_. Wrath had his game face on, but inside, he was reeling.

"Let's go over what we know one last time," he said. Might as well make sure that they were all on the same page while the sun was up and they couldn't do shit.

But what did they know? Not much. The clusterfuck had started before dawn when Phury and Zsadist had never come back from their hunt. Wrath had never insisted on hourly check-ins—something that he bitterly regretted now—because the problem with being the King of a pack of ill-adjusted Alpha males was that they tended to argue with or disregard his orders, especially when they felt like they were being wet-nursed. Wrath had long since learned to pick his battles with his Brothers wisely.

They went out in twos or threes; he had seen to that. And they reported to him after their shifts, but not always before they'd gotten some first aid from Doc Jane or hit the showers. That was why it had been _Bella_, Zsadist's _shellan_, who had told him through her tears that neither Phury nor Zsadist were home yet and that they weren't answering their phones.

Wrath remembered the next hour only as a blur of whirlwind activity. Somehow, he'd rounded up everyone else; escorted by Rhage and Vishous, Bella, who had tasted both Phury and Zsadist's blood, had been dispatched to find them. Originally, Wrath had planned to divide the Brotherhood into two teams. Bella, Rhage, and Vishous would go after Zsadist; Cormia, Phury's _shellan_, who had presumably fed from him, would go after her _hellren_, accompanied by Butch and Wrath himself. But no one had seemed able to find Cormia and there hadn't been time to wait for her; the sky had already been blue. At the time, Wrath had hardly given a thought to Cormia's absence. It had been only later that that had become an emergency.

Zsadist had been closest, so Bella had gone for him first. His smoking body had been found facedown in an alley. Rhage had volunteered to take him to the mansion's clinic for the urgent medical treatment that he'd so obviously required while Bella and Vishous went on after Phury, but the sunlight had been too strong. They'd all three had to retreat, badly burned.

"So, V," said Wrath, toying with the slide-out keyboard of his smartphone, "Doc Jane's had a chance to examine her patient. What's her diagnosis?"

Vishous, who was still slathered in burn cream, folded his arms across a chest like a bull's. "Diaphragmatic trauma," he said, "Judging from the bruising. She doesn't know for sure if there's tearing yet because injuries like that don't show up well on x-rays."

Wrath snapped his phone shut. "_Diaphragmatic _trauma?" he repeated. So Zsadist had been hit just below the ribs… But he had been trained to absorb a blow like that from a _lesser_. "Was he hit by a car?"

"Either that or someone punched him going very, _very _fast." Vishous wasn't being flip. Not after the footage they'd seen from the mansion's security cameras.

Wrath filed this information away in his head for later. "He awake?"

"He's in and out. He's in a lot of pain. He can barely breathe."

"Bella with him?"

"Yeah."

"Good." Wrath went back to snapping his phone open and closed. Maybe it wasn't fair to Bella, but Wrath wanted Zsadist to hear the news of Phury's death from her. Even wounded as he was, he might try to fuck up anyone else who told him about it. Before he'd met Bella, Zsadist had cared about nobody but his brother.

Again, Wrath re-lived the moment that Bella had told them that Phury was dead. It had been just after she, Rhage, and Vishous had come back with Z, who'd been out cold. Wrath and Butch had been waiting for them in the foyer but when he'd seen them, Wrath had decided at once that their reports could wait; he'd sent them on, down to the clinic. As they'd left, Bella had suddenly cried out that she'd lost all sense of where Phury was. Everyone had known what that meant and, for an instant, they'd all gone as still as statues from shock. Bella had tasted her brother-in-law's blood. She should have been able to find him no matter where he was. Unless he was dead.

After that, there was another blur, this one of Bella crying—or had that been Mary? Hadn't Bella been in the clinic with Jane?—and the _doggen _trying to find Cormia, so that she could be told and Wrath trying to keep his shit together, so he could tell her.

That had been when they'd realized that Cormia wasn't just absent. She had _disappeared_.

Wrath slammed his phone down on his desk, hard. "Until Zsadist can tell us what happened to him and Phury, we'll have to figure out what we can for ourselves," he said, "We need to know who did this and why." He glanced round the room. "No one thinks that it's _lessers_, do they?"

There was a general shaking of heads. For one thing, according to Rhage and Vishous, there hadn't been any bodies in the alley where Zsadist had been found. It was hard to believe that the _lessers_ had brought down two Brothers in a street fight; but it was _inconceivable_ that Phury and Zsadist had been killed and mortally wounded without taking out even a single slayer. For another thing, there was what they had seen in the surveillance room…

During the chaotic search for Cormia, someone had found her cell phone on the bedside table in her room. Butch, the cop, had had the idea to check her text messages for clues about where she might have gone. "Whatever you say, Nancy Drew," Rhage had muttered; and that was how they had stumbled across two sentences that, as they would have said in the Old Language, 'boded ill': "Hey, _leelan_, meet me at the mansion's gates in half an hour. I have a surprise for you. (Smiley face)." They had been sent from Phury's phone just before dawn.

Of course, no one had thought it was just coincidence that Phury's _shellan _had vanished the very same night that he'd been killed. But no one had thought that she had been _kidnapped_, either. From behind the _mhis? _From inside the mansion's fortified gates? It wasn't possible.

Maybe Cormia had opened the gates, walked out well beyond the _mhis_. But why would she do that? Phury hadn't sent that text message. Did it _sound_ like Phury—frickin' _smiley faces_ while his twin was bleeding to death in that alley? Or, even if Phury hadn't known what had happened to Z, if he'd sent that message, he'd be safe, with Cormia, in the mansion right now. No—someone had incapacitated Phury, and then taken his phone. Someone had sent that message to Cormia in Phury's name to lure her outside. But if she'd gone outside and found that _someone _waiting for her, instead of her _hellren_, she wouldn't have opened the gates. She would have raised the alarm.

Perhaps she'd been shot through the gates' wrought iron bars? …No, the _doggen _had checked the courtyard already. They hadn't found any bodies. Besides, what was the point of luring Cormia out to the gates, just to kill her? The death of a female of gentle, high birth… didn't accomplish anything. On the other hand, if Cormia had been kidnapped, it would help explain why Phury hadn't been in the same alley as his brother, but had been carried off and murdered elsewhere. Phury had been knocked out, imprisoned, interrogated—Cormia had been captured and used to make him talk—if that was the case, then Cormia was probably dead now, too. After her _hellren _had been killed, she wouldn't have been of any use anymore.

"But why would the _lessers_ leave Zsadist behind?" Butch had asked as they had gone to the surveillance room. As a homicide detective, Butch had been used to asking questions to fill in the gaps in his knowledge of crimes, and rebuilding crime scenes in his head. "Wouldn't they have wanted _two _prisoners?"

"Maybe they couldn't transport them both," V had suggested. "You've seen those toy cars that they drive. Or maybe they didn't think that they could handle two of us at once."

"Then why leave Z alive? Why not kill him?"

"They probably thought they _had_ killed him," Rhage had said. "Even _I _thought he was dead when I saw him. V did, too. And Bella…" Hollywood's handsome face had hardened. "Z's going to kick my ass for letting her see him like that—stretched out, all cold and stiff, his mouth smeared with blood—"

Butch had persisted. "So, after the _lessers_ take out two of us—two!—in a street fight for the first time _ever_, they can't be bothered to make sure that one of us is actually _dead_? All they would have had to do is cut his throat."

"Jesus, cop! Who knows why they do anything that they do? Maybe they were in a rush; maybe they thought that there were more of us nearby. Or maybe they left Z alive as a message…"

Wrath's eyes had gone flinty. Z had been a _message_?

Maybe he ought to send the _lessers_ some _messages_ of his own. How many broken, not-quite-dead bodies oozing black blood did it take to spell "No one fucks with my people. _No one_."

He actually hadn't minded Butch and Rhage and Vishous' talk that much. That was how smart males handled problems—they talked their way through them. Besides, the more time they spent talking, the less time they had to grieve. They were torn up over Phury, but they couldn't just let themselves go to pieces.

All the same, he didn't allow himself to be distracted by them. He'd had two goals, going into the surveillance room, and he'd kept his mind on them. First, he had wanted to see how Cormia had been forced or tricked through the gates. If the mansion was somehow at risk, then he needed to know about it. Maybe, if he was lucky, he'd even catch a glimpse of the _lesser_ who'd taken her. He couldn't tell _lessers_ apart, usually—after all, he was blind, and they all looked the same—but the one that had kidnapped his Brother's _shellan_? He'd remember _him_.

His second goal had been to find the dipshit who'd been staffing the surveillance room that morning so that he could tear him a new asshole. How did you miss a kidnapping taking place right under your nose?

V had set up the security system, and he was the one who most often manned it, but on the nights that he went out hunting or was off, as he had been the night before, the job was rotated amongst Phury and Z's students. Naturally, the students had long since gone home. During the day, when all of the Brothers were at the mansion, and no one was going in or out of it, one of the _doggen_ could handle watching the screens. After he'd asked her the name of the student whom she had relieved, Wrath had dismissed the maid on duty. V had loaded up the footage of the main gates half an hour after "Phury's" message had been sent to Cormia.

"Okay, there she is. She's left the building— She's walking out into the courtyard—"

"Is there anyone outside the gates?" Wrath had asked impatiently. His eyes just couldn't handle screens. They looked all gray to him.

"No. We have motion-detecting halogen lights mounted on the gateposts. If anything were out there, the lights would have snapped on, but they haven't." V's eyes scanned the screens, observing the scene from all different angles. "She's at the gates now— She's looking out through its bars at the street— The lights have snapped on in response to her movement— At least now we know they were working— What the _fuck_—!" At the same second, both Butch and Rhage had uttered curses as well.

Wrath hadn't liked being out of the loop. "What happened? Was someone there?"

"No. No one." Vishous had rewound the tape. "She just…_vanished_."

"What?" By this point, Wrath's head had felt as though there was a crazed porcupine trapped inside it. "Are you saying that she dematerialized?"

"Well, that could be _one_ explanation—"

"How's _this_ explanation?" Rhage had demanded. "There's something wrong with your computers."

"My computers are fine," V had snapped back, stung.

"V, can you play the tape more slowly?" Butch had interrupted.

"It isn't a tape, it's a digital feed," V had said, but he'd complied.

There had been a few seconds of silence.

"There!" Butch had said suddenly. "Did you see that? Can you play it even more slowly?"

"This is as slow as it goes, cop."

There had been a few more seconds of silence. Then— "What the hell?" Rhage had exclaimed. Vishous had sworn.

"If somebody doesn't tell me what's going on," Wrath had said in his most measured voice, "I'm going to start banging heads together."

Butch had described what they'd seen. A black kind of fog or mist had come into the courtyard through the bars of the gates. It had resolved itself into a blurred, shadowy shape—the shape of a man. It had appeared to lash out at Cormia, but it was hard to tell for sure, because, even seen frame by frame, it had been moving impossibly fast. Then, Cormia had vanished, and the black fog had drifted back out of the gates. All this had happened in the space of seconds; it was no wonder that no one had seen it.

Wrath had popped up his sunglasses and rubbed his throbbing temples. "So, what you're telling me," he had said, "is that we're not dealing with _lessers_." _Lessers _couldn't materialize and de-materialize, after all. "We're dealing with a rogue of our own race."

But even as he'd said the words, he'd realized that he might be wrong. Vampires didn't turn into mist when they de-materialized. They more or less teleported.

"Maybe not," V had said, echoing Wrath's thoughts. "Vampires can't move that _fast_…"

"…So what the hell are we dealing with?" Wrath asked.

Vishous lit a cigarette. "Just because the _lessers _didn't kidnap Cormia, that doesn't mean that they weren't involved in this. Jane tested samples of Z's blood. She found traces of xylazine in it."

He didn't have to explain himself further. Everyone knew that the _lessers_ used horse tranquilizers to capture civilians. They were notorious for it.

Wrath nodded, his jaw tightening. "So—we put the screws to the _lessers_. Anyone have a problem with that?"

No one did. Phury might have objected—he'd always been the most conscientious one—but then, Phury wasn't there. None of them were ever going to see him again. The _lessers_, or an ally of theirs, had killed him.

They were going to regret that for _so _many reasons.

"Until we have more information about what happened tonight, there'll have to be some changes around here," Wrath went on. "First of all, I want the mansion locked down. Aside from us and the _doggen_ no one comes in or goes out, day or night, not even onto the grounds."

"Marissa's not going to like that," Butch warned.

"You know what _I _don't like?" snapped Wrath. "_I_ don't like the fact that some freak show speedster strolled into our courtyard without tripping the main gates' alarm and abducted a defenseless female without being seen by our surveillance cameras. _I_ don't like the idea that Cormia might have been tortured while Phury was forced to watch. And _I_ don't like the thought of that happening to anyone else—so I'm not going to let it. There's nothing to _like _about any of this—" Least of all, that it could all have easily happened to him and Beth; or Butch and Marissa; or Rhage and Mary; or even Z and Bella. If it hadn't been Phury's turn to go out last night—or if Z had been the one whom the _lessers _had taken with them—he would be here right now, in the study, helping plan their next move, or in a hospital bed, relatively safe. "So, I suggest we all deal," Wrath concluded. When nobody argued, he went on.

"Without Phury and Z, we can't hold classes as usual, so they'll have to be postponed. Since we're down two males, I'm adding Blay, John, and Qhuinn to the rota." They hadn't been Z's best students, but they hadn't been his worst, either, and the Brothers already knew and trusted all of them. When you fought with a team, as they did every night, it was almost more important to have teammates whom you trusted than it was to have teammates who were especially skilled. "I'll start making arrangements for their formal initiation. In the meantime, Rhage, you, Blay, and Qhuinn will be one team; Butch, V, you two and John will be another."

Hopefully, a team of three wouldn't go down the way that Phury and Z had gone down. And it made sense to have the new recruits accompany veterans. Rhage was the strongest of them; he could look out for both Blay and Qhuinn. Plus, organizing the teams this way meant that Butch and V could continue to work together, which, of course, was vital.

Still, Wrath wasn't exactly _happy_ that he had to draft the mansion's _troika_. Sure, Blay, John, and Qhuinn were all adult males, but to someone two hundred and eighty years their senior, who had known them when they'd been pre-trans, they were still just kids. And Wrath wasn't sending them out to kill _lessers_; he was sending them out to _torture _them. Wrath reminded himself of what he had just said to Butch—_there's nothing to like about _any_ of this, so I suggest we all deal_—and shook off his doubts with an effort.

"Your teams will take turns going out at nights. Whichever one stays in will rotate its members into and out of the surveillance room for two-hour-long shifts. I'll brief the _doggen _on what to look for during the day." Wrath paused. No dissent. Excellent. "Obviously, the _glymera_ will have to be told what's going on in a way that won't cause panic. I don't think that they're in any especial danger. The Brotherhood has always been the _lessers'_ real target. Even when they were killing civilians, it was to get at us. Now that they can come after us directly, they're not going to bother with civilians any more—"

Suddenly, the study door flew open, so forcefully that it hit the wall opposite with a resounding _thwack!_ Overhead, the drippy little pearl chandelier rattled. Heads swiveled, like keys in locks, but Wrath, whose desk faced the door, saw who it was at once.

He hadn't seen Z look so bad since before he'd met Bella. His face was stark white, as bloodless, as cold, and as white as marble. Everything he did seemed to hurt him. When he breathed, it hurt him. When he took a step forward, he grunted in pain; the pain showed, naked, on his face. Over Z's shoulder, Wrath could just make out Bella, who looked like an anxious angel.

"What the hell are you doing out of bed?" V demanded, more surprised than angry. "Jane said that you might have to have _surgery_—"

"How did you get up the _stairs_?" Butch asked at the same time, sounding awed. It was a fair question. Z was having trouble crossing the threshold, so how _had _he ascended two flights of stairs?

Wrath thought about ordering Z back to bed, but if Z hadn't listened to Doc Jane's or his own _shellan's_ instructions to stay there, then he certainly wasn't going to listen to _him. _So all he said was, "Take a chair Z. Rhage, give Z your chair."

Wordlessly, Rhage stood up. Although Z looked as though he was about to fall over, he took a second to incline his head respectfully to Wrath. Then he sat down. He sat very straight, as if it would have hurt to slump. Bella rounded on Wrath as though relieved to have found a target for her anger and frustration.

"My Lord—" She said the words the way she might have said _you idiot_. "With all due respect, my _hellren _should be resting. His diaphragm may be torn; he may require an operation. Jane said that if he exerts himself, his digestive organs might herniate into his chest. He's in no fit state to participate in a council of war!"

"Go away, Bella," Z growled, shocking Wrath. He'd never heard Z speak like that to his _shellan _ever before. Could it be that Z was angry with her for saving him instead of Phury?

No, that couldn't be it. Probably, he, like them, was angry with the whole situation. As well as in a lot of pain.

"Bella, if he doesn't want to leave, the only thing that I can do is haul him bodily from the room, and that will _definitely_ make his injuries worse," Wrath pointed out. "Just give us a minute, okay?"

Bella was far from pleased, but she reluctantly shut the door. As soon as she was gone, Zsadist asked, "Is it true what she told me?" His eyes were like black, lightless tunnels. "Or was I hearing things while I was fading in and out? Is Phury really—dead?"

No one said anything, but their silence was answer enough. Wrath hadn't thought it possible for Z's face to go even whiter, but it did. A wet gleam came into his jet-black eyes.

For what felt like a long time, he sat as still as a stone, his features fixed and unmoving. Then, with a suddenness that startled everyone, he struck himself on his thigh a blow that would have crippled an ox and swore. None of them in the room were shy about using bad language, but Zsadist's curse had rung with real ugliness.

"I will _ahvenge _him," he said. "I _will_. I don't care how long it'll take—"

"That's good, because it's going to take quite a while," Wrath cut in. He wasn't happy with the look in Z's eyes at all. "You're in no kind of shape to go after anyone."

He half expected Zsadist to get in his face and tell him that he was going out that very night, and that if Wrath didn't like it, he could go fuck himself, because it wasn't any of his business what he did. But, instead, his Brother nodded, almost tranquilly.

"Not now," he agreed. "But soon." He clenched the hand still resting on his thigh until his knuckles turned white and his tendons strained against his skin.

"We'll let Jane decide when." Wrath didn't like this new calm intensity of purpose any more than he liked Z's usual stupid aggression. Before Z could argue, he briskly moved the conversation along. "In the meantime, it would help us out if you would tell us everything you remember about the guy who attacked you and Phury. You know. If you're ready." Wrath hadn't much practice being sensitive, but he was still annoyed to find that he wasn't much good at it.

"All right. On one condition." Z's eyes blazed suddenly. "Any of you find the _bastard_ before I'm back out there, you leave him for _me_, understand? He's _mine_. I'm going to be the one to kill him."

"'The bastard'?" V echoed. "There was only _one _of him?"

"That explains the absence of _lesser_ bodies in the alley where we found him," said Rhage.

"But how could _one person_ take out _both_ Phury and Z?" Vishous asked. He looked at Wrath. "It could only have been the same guy who kidnapped Cormia."

Zsadist's head snapped up. "Cormia's been kidnapped?"

It was Wrath's turn to be shocked. "I thought that Bella would have told you." Which had been stupid of him, he realized now. After the way that Zsadist had come into his study, how could he have believed that he had given Bella time to tell him anything? In as few words as possible, he told Zsadist about 'Phury's' text and about what they'd seen on the security tape. He didn't say why he thought that Cormia had been taken, but Zsadist drew the same conclusions anyway.

"The son of a _bitch_. He took her to make Phury talk. He must have. After he knocked me out— That's when he had to have driven off with Phury. He would have found Phury's cell phone in his pocket; he would have seen Cormia's name in his contacts' list—"

"So he _was _the same person whom you fought?" Butch asked.

"Listen, Z," Wrath said quickly, "I can't promise you that we won't kill this fucker if we find him out on the streets. He's too dangerous to let go. Look at the damage he did in one night—Cormia kidnapped, Phury dead. Christ knows just what he did to _you_. But, even though we can't play catch-and-release with this tool, we can try our damndest to take him alive." Wrath's voice hardened. "If we do, you have my word that we'll give him to you. And you can do whatever you want with him. None of us will interfere. That fair?"

Z nodded, accepting this. Without preamble, he launched into his story, his voice as flat as his eyes. "I saw Phury duck into an alley after a _lesser_—"

Rhage interrupted. "Are you sure that he was a _lesser_?"

"What the fuck else could he have been?" Z snarled. "Besides, I could _smell _him. I followed Phury," he went on. "I thought that there might be more _lessers_ in that alley, waiting for him. But there weren't. There was only that first _lesser, _the one whom I'd already seen."

"I couldn't have been more than a minute behind Phury, but, by the time I got to him, it was all over. Phury was down. And the _lesser_ was standing over him."

The wet gleam was back in Z's eyes. It must have happened so fast. One instant, Phury had been sprinting around a corner, looking capable and determined, the picture of a warrior for his race. The next instant, he had been sprawled on the dirty pavement, his face smashed like a rotten fruit. And that had been the last time that Z had seen him alive.

"What did the _lesser _look like?" Butch asked.

Z's eyes drifted, unseeing, as he tried to remember. "I don't know. It was dark. He was small for a _lesser_. Short. Thin." His eyes snapped suddenly back into focus. "I went for him. He started going _fast_, so fast that he was just a blur. No, not even just a blur—a flicker, a _suggestion _of movement. But I could still see where he was going from the way that the air moved as he passed through it. I was ready for him when he reappeared."

Zsadist started talking more quickly now, as though this memory was, like a bad tooth, something that hurt him, that he wanted extracted. "I stuck him with my blade, but he— He turned to _smoke_. The smoke sort of swirled away, and then it became him again. He sped up, the way that he had done before. That's how he managed to hit me. Twice." Without thinking, Z touched the back of his head, where even Wrath could see a purplish swelling the size of a hen's egg. His eyes burned, banked coals ready to blaze up into flames. "It was my own fault that I lost that fight. When he turned into smoke, it surprised me. If I hadn't been so slow to react to that, I could have killed him. Then, Phury wouldn't be dead." His expression twisted.

"Any idea why he left you alive?" V asked.

"No, but he's going to regret it."

Wrath exhaled the breath that he felt like he'd been holding forever. So they weren't dealing with aliens—_Hell, why not? _He'd asked himself earlier. Who was he to disbelieve in anything? He was a _vampire. _Most humans didn't believe in _him_—some rogue of their own race, or his own worst private fear, humans. Humans weren't even tolerant of their _own _species, let alone anyone else's. He had no doubt that, if they learned of his race, they'd try to exterminate them. _Maybe that's what this is_, he'd thought. Maybe the humans' government had found out about them at last, and wanted to take them out, quietly, before everyone else found out about them also, and panicked. The thought had made Wrath feel a bit like panicking himself. He was good, but he couldn't fight the whole _military_.

They were just dealing with an old, familiar enemy. Wrath tried to feel relieved about that. He could handle _lessers_.

But maybe not _lessers_ that moved super fast and that turned into smoke when he struck them. And what if there was more than just one of them out there?

So much for _relief_.

"This changes nothing," Wrath said harshly, before anyone, including him, could lose morale. "Our plan was to squeeze the _lessers_; that's still what we're going to do. At least some of them have to know who our target is and where he lives. Our goal is to find those _lessers_ and get them to tell us what they know. All of you are dismissed. Get some sleep. The new schedule kicks off tomorrow. If anyone sees Blay, John, or Qhuinn, tell them to come see me. V, hang back a second; we need to discuss how we can improve the mansion's security. And Z—" he called as Zsadist rose to his feet painfully and started to hobble to the door.

Z slowly turned to regard him. Wrath wondered how he could say what he had to say as tactfully as possible, but then decided to just get right to the point. Maybe, being direct and quick would be the most painless way to do things, like when he killed someone.

"Someone's going to have to plan the commemoration of Phury and Cormia's return unto the Fade," he said carefully. "You're Phury's last living relative."

"Cormia might still be alive," Z pointed out. His hideous, scarred mouth stretched in a grim smile suddenly. "But you don't think so, do you? I don't either. Fine, I'll do it. I might as well, now that I can't fight. It's the least Phury deserves from me. He spent all those years trying to bring me back to life and now I get to bury him. It's strange," he added over his shoulder as he once again turned towards the door. "I've spent my whole life until now wondering why I was taken instead of Phury. I'm going to spend the rest of my life wondering why he was taken instead of me."


End file.
